In the last two days three members of The Fellowship have lost someone they loved. A husband, a father, an aunt. People. While exchanging emails with each of our friends it has become very clear to me that many of us have very different, what is the word? ways? family traditions? protocols?. when it comes to burying our dead. Different yes, and every one is so laden with grief and release and closure. The funeral is such an important occasion in a life.
Death is as predictable as birth. We all have our ways of dealing with it. And every family tradition is different.
The other day I was in the kitchen with my son and we were discussing an old gentleman we both knew. We were worried about some of his behaviours. My son said “He is afraid of dying.” His wife, as she set the table, laying knife beside fork agreed “Everyone is afraid of dying.” she said. “No.” said my son, ” “Mum isn’t. She is the only person I know who is not afraid of dying.” He hates that this is true. But it is true. I faced it. I touched it. I will never be afraid of it again.
“Shoulder high.” I called to him as I chopped the greens. Bashing gaily away at the poor innocent leaves with the big knife. I have always told my sons and my daughter that they must carry my casket shoulder high through the crowds of mourners (laugh). Then afterwards have a big party. I do think it is important to have these things in order. “That’s enough.” he said. Not wishing to pursue the conversation further. Sons are like that. 
Yesterday, this is what I wrote to our fellowship friend, who is having to wait two weeks before the funeral of her dearly departed. (Not her choice by the way.)
“I remember when Mum died, after such a long time ‘dying’ (and we even wished for her to be able to die she was so ill and in such pain), that I actually got a shock when she died. I was knocked sideways by it really. Everything happened very fast. In NZ we tend to bury people within a couple of days. After they have died the undertaker collects the dead mother, then a few hours later returns her to the family home (or to the marae) and they are set up – the casket open – then we all sit with her, people coming in to pay their respects (shoes off, hats off) they drop off some food and have a drink or a cup of tea with us. On the first night it sometimes get’s a bit rowdy, at the end of the second day (or possibly the third) the body is taken to the church to sit for the night. We all go too, taking turns to sit with her.
Then in the morning there is the funeral mass and we drive her out to the graveyard and after that service – we sing, then we throw straw on top of the casket in the ground to deaden the sounds and then we all get shovels out of our cars and fill in the grave. My family buries our people ourselves. It takes a long time.
I do think that if someone cannot be bothered coming to visit me when I am alive why should my body have to WAIT until they come to visit me when I am dead. Seeing someone alive is surely more important. (Yes, yes I hear my sons begin to growl again – Mama can you not behave for Five minutes.. ?).
Anyway, From the moment of death to the time of the burial – the dead of my family are not left alone.
After the burial we all go back to her home again and have lots more to drink and eat. This night usually gets VERY rowdy. This is what we call a Wake in NZ. We sure drink enough to Wake the dead. At home in New Zealand it is important to celebrate the life of the person who has died in their family homes or on their
marae. It is all very personal. I knew a guy who took his mother in her casket to the graveyard in the back of his truck. I would like that! I don’t want a bloody shiny expensive hearse for goodness sake.
All this left me wondering about your burial rites. Your family traditions. How do you bury your dead? What are your burial rites.? Are we really that different?
As the Old Codger says. “We are not getting off this boat alive. “
Not today though darlings. If we are reading. We are alive, today.
Love, love,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
151 responses to “Human Burial Rites”
My father wanted to be cremated and was. I saw him, after he’d died, and was amazed at what peace it gave me. He looked peaceful and that made all the difference to me. My mother wishes to be cremated as well, following a high-kicking party. Then she wants my brother and me to scatter her ashes in all the places she loved which will require an outrageous road trip. She’s always said that funerals are the most fascinating events. She loves them. All that coming together and probably the rush of emotion. The best funeral I ever went to was that of my French mother-in-law. The service was in a church built in the 1300’s. Tiny. Then we walked through the little town carrying the coffin all the way to the cemetery. I will never forget that walk. The streets. The light. The way we all talked and cried and even laughed. And then there was feast, outside under the August style. French-style. With lots of wine and talk late into the night. Cigarettes and stars, for those who smoked.
Shoulder high! I wish i could come to visit you soon. i want to see what you see out there! c
This would be a great topic of conversation: The Best Funeral I’ve Ever Been To.
My heartfelt condolences to those who have lost people they loved recently.
I blogged about this topic here.
As I said in the comments, Elly’s instructions are to dispose of me quickly and then go party!
sounds just right!.c
Warm and healing thoughts to those of the Farmy grieving today, may you find a moment or two of peace to remember. I haven’t really been been touched by death, really only my ex’s mother who was a dear and well-loved friend. her funeral was standard Catholic mass, burial in the local cemetery and then the wake at the local bowls club where she played the pokies. It was a lovely gentle time of remembering her. For myself, I’m not afraid of dying and will be happy to ‘go home’. I have told my kids I don’t want money wasted on a fancy wood coffin, and have been exploring ‘eco-coffins’. There are wicker ones as someone else suggested, a woman in England makes beautiful poor wool felted ones, and in a village not far from me there are a couple of young women who make bio-degradable cardboard ones, that don’t give off noxious gases if burned. They will paint it in a design of your choice, or you can get a plain one, and have a coffin-painting party with all your friends and family gathering to make their mark. I like this idea, then after the party I can use it to store my wool and fabric stash until the coffin’s needed. I’m working on stitching myself a shroud, no crimpilene frock thank you, I tell my kids, so I stitch up squares of fabric with events, places and people that have meaning in my life, and they’ll all be stitched together to wrap me in. Friends make blocks as well and send them to me. I want Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody played really loudly, and everyone to have a good time.,but like your sons Celi, mine doesn’t want to know………I get that stern “enough Mum”……but I tell him it’s important, they need to know these things.
yours sons and mine! we will have to write it down for them! so they cannot ignore us! – actually this is not a bad idea..
Watch out Farmy Fellowship Friends I can see the signs 💡 Another book – How to finish me off! 💡
Letters for my Little Survivors!
If I were dying, I’d adopt your shroud idea in a flash. I’d ask all my friends to send a piece to denote our friendship and what it meant to them. My family would have very strict instructions to use it or be cut out of my will (nothing like a spot of financial blackmail…). Perhaps I’ll construct my own coffin out of papier mache; it’s strong and light so being carried shoulder high will be much easier!
I love the word shroud. We should all have one that we air on the rosemary hedge every sunday. Just to be ready. Just as a reminder that this coil is mortal. I could air mine but no-one would see.. my family is far, far away from here. Or maybe it is you. Love that word coffin, Cough IN.. hopefully NOT! c
The Fellowship is also your family. Pity we are all dispersed so far and wide.
I have seen one of those felted wool coffins at an exhibition in Durham. It was absolutely gorgeous and – of course – bio-degradeable. It was made by a friend of my daughter’s: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=685369187
What a thought provoking thread to wake up to. There has been a lot of death in my life, enough for me to not fear it. I too wish for a basket, I first saw one when my sister and I were selecting my father’s casket, and I thought to myself, ‘that’s what I want’. I told my sister, but I don’t think she really listened; some people don’t like that kind of talk.
I also firmly believe it is very important to have a marker. I was discussing this with my elderly art tutor after the service of a mutual friend. Often when we are young we don’t care about these things, cremation and scattering appeals. Ephemeral and free. But as time passes, our lives touch more and more people even if only briefly, we can become distanced and separated but that spiritual connection remains. Sometimes we can’t be with a person at the time of their passing, or even at their service simply because of issues of time and distance, yet we continue to feel the need to connect with them in a physical way for the rest of our own lives, and that is why a marker is important. It can provide closure and continuity.
A man that was a lover and partner in my younger years died, but no one told me he was ill or invited me to his funeral. I learned he had died a few weeks later, I went to the cemetery and saw the mounded earth. Then life went on, and I would think of him a random times, over the years, if I happened to be at that particular cemetery I would try to find the grave and couldn’t. The earth had settled and trees had grown, nothing was as i remembered it. So I emailed the Sexton and she gave me the location details, I carried that scrap of paper in my purse for another four years. A couple of months ago I was at that cemetery again. After the gathering had drifted apart I got the scrap of paper out of my wallet and drove down through the tree shaded rows to the place I was seeking. It was odd, surreal. I parked the car and walked up and down two rows trying to work out the numbering and I had just decided I needed to go back and consult the directory board again. As I turned, there it was; a simple brass plaque with his name and dates. My world shrank, I just stood there looking at it, time passed, and slowly the world came back. Bit by bit I became aware of the sun and wind and the big norfolk pine tree and the two other ladies doing the same thing as me, I said good-bye to him, walked back to the car and drove away feeling that in some way a crooked piece of my life had be straightened and gently pressed into place.
The point of that ramble is this: That little brass plaque with a name and a pair of dates is an enduring reference point. Something that can be visited, or not, but now I know it is there and it exists in my memory, that set of memories is now complete and I can put it away on the shelf. That’s what my tutor and I were discussing, what we would leave as a marker, I still don’t know precisely what mine will be like, but I know I will make it myself.
Well good morning to you all, I don’t comment often and I’m not sure where all that came from.
To those grieving, I wish you peace.
What a beautiful story, so touchingly told.
and you are so right..the marker.. I loved this story of yours.. may i use this in the book letters to my baby girl? This is an important observation. c
Yes of course you may, I would be honoured.
Oh here it is. I see your request is for someone else. That explains it. Please ignore my comment further down.
Thank you for sharing that story with us. You have made me re-think my prejudice against grave-stones.
These comments come, for me, at a time I feel the need for this discussion. I’m an Army brat and with a lifetime of moving around, there has been a bit of a disconnection from our roots. There is just “us”. A small family, my sister and I with the rest only children, their only children and my Mom. She’s turning 90 next week and we are losing her to dementia. There is a party planned with all of us coming together to celebrate her life. Could this be our wake?
Yes. that could be your Wake. I hope her dementia is a gentle smiley one. c
I have so many thoughts swirling around right now after reading every single comment, with much of what I wanted to say has already been said. One being I’m so sorry for some of the fellowship’s recent losses…my own dad just died last month and I am also losing my mum slowly to dementia, which is a terrible grief all it’s own. Cecilia, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the eco-reef burials or not but I thought of you when I heard about them because you love the sea so much, as do I. They take your ashes and embed them in some sort of material that is put back in the sea and they become artificial reefs for sea life. I mean after all, we came from the sea, we may as well return to it. The family goes along on the boat that takes you out there for the “sea burial”. I am thinking seriously of it because I am happiest when I am swimming in the ocean or just sitting next to it!
Not to make light of any of this discussion but I can’t help but remember this quote someone said about the afterlife….I’m not sure if there is a heaven or not but I pray there is no hell!
No I had not heard of the eco reef burials.. I shall do some research..c
I was a grave goer for many years after my dad died. In Germany the grave is decorated with plants and flowers . It gave me peace to plant flowers, it was something I could still do for him. I’m not afraid of dying and I just want my ashes in a warm peaceful place.
I am sorry for the recent losses in our fellow ship , my heart goes out to them.
I love that you can plant trees and flowers, here in the US you cannot plant anything at all in the graveyards around here. I don’t know about NZ.. I need to check.. But the idea of planting flowers alongside a grave is such a lovely one. c
You actually have this plot, you have a single or triple, my grandparents were buried with their son on a triple burial plot. Our cemetary in our village is peaceful and beautiful and a meeting place for people who take care of their relatives graves. I planted a climbing rose on my father’s grave and it was beautiful until my sister in law decided to rip it all out and put gravel on the grave. Oh well, what can I do 😒. I put some potted heather and a wreaths over the gravel.
My sincere condolences to those in the Fellowship who have lost beloved ones in the last few days. I hope you have family and friends who will help you in your grief and that you will soon be able to live with what has passed and with what is to come . . .
Having lived in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney for some three decades I have come up against ‘sitting Shiva’ amongst Jewish friends and neighbours on many occasions . . . it did pay respect and often make the pain easier for those left behind.
Oh the Estonian Lutherans bury within days and have a huge wake afterwards: in my younger years I so objected to that custom I saw as ‘frivolity’ and indeed oft refused to attend: only later did I come to realize the ‘celebratory’ aspect of the custom. Well, I have already come up against my own immortality more than once: quite frankly once my soul leaves my body I am not particularly fussed as to what happens with the latter: I will know I have ‘left’!! In my case and perchance selfishly I want to be cremated so my ashes could be scattered at Sydney’s incredibly beautifully situated Botanical Gardens just above the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour: cannot think of a lovelier and more peaceful resting place 🙂 !
[smile] Methinks that should have read ‘mortality’ !! Wishful thinking ?
It is beautiful up there, by the opera house. We will remember your wishes. c
how do i say if you go before us, can you let us know so we can be there too.. weird, isn’t it.. c
Miss C – Totally weird and I so love you for it!!!!!! Actually I have firm plans for at least another 20 in spite of . . .. . .and Miss C, I’ll turn up on your doorstep yet . . .
Hmm : Boo an that coat and Marmalade with that particular kitty!!!!!!!
Good, i will have your room ready with bed made and said Kitty and Boo ready at your feet. c
2016, early autumn, I most certainly want to/have to meet John, Danny and my New Hampshire crowd too!!!! Oh, oh have to travel down to Texas also [ hmm, they do seem to be moving around there 🙂 !!] . . . it will actually happen . . .
I wanted extend my sympathies to the members of the fellowship who have lost a loved one. I want to thank everyone for their condolences. It is a great comfort to me. I really mean that. My father died this past Thursday of Alzheimer’s and complications from decades of smoking. I am an only child and my mother died many years ago. There are some difficulties with my father’s wife, to put it mildly. The service has been scheduled for Dec. 8. Upon inquiry as to that length of time, I was told it was convenient for her and that is all I needed to know. I tell you that not as a poor me, but as a “this is how it is”. You all have been so honest. It gave me courage to do the same. However, I have wonderful friends, a loving husband, concerned distant relatives, and the fellowship to hold me up and it is more than enough. I feel wrapped in comfort even though you weren’t sure who you were speaking to me. It helps tremendously. Thank you so, so much.
You have some time to ‘wait’ for matters to settle down . . . may all pass quietly and peacefully . . .sincerely
Love always Kim. We are right there with you. c
Oh, Kim, I’m so sorry to hear about your father. I have to confess how jealous I am of you because I remember how you were so so so much help to Cecilia, and I know I could never be as helpful. There was nothing you couldn’t do–fearless!!
Condolences to those who have lost their love ones. We also have had our mother, father, granddaughter, and mother-in-law at home in an open coffin for a few days – 3 or 4, depending on how long it’s taken some family members to travel from the outback of Australia or wherever they might be. Those days have been an important part of saying goodbye. We’ve lit candles and the children have run in and out of the room, sometimes stopping to be still and take in what has happened. My dad’s service was at home in the living room with a celebrant friend who also farewelled my mum 2 years before that. My guitarist brother has played to them to help them on their way. We’ve had food, tears and laughter and marvelled at the fact that all five siblings are together and talking to each other. It’s all been sad, warm, devastating and wonderful at the same time. Thank you for raising the big subjects of life Celi. You never flinch from the hard stuff. Your children are lucky. (PS Here in NZ we now have lots of trained celebrants who are independent of religious organisations. They work with the family to create the service the family wants)
So wonderfully Nz’ld – even the guitar. To have all five of you together at one time is such an achievement. we don’t think about that when we wander the world.. c
I saw a list of WordPress notifications and it seemed that you’d left a request on this post, to use my comment in your next book. But I don’t see that request here. Let me know by email if you can. The answer is probably yes. I just got home from a big funeral so the subject is close to me.
I shall be back in touch on this by email.. yes..after a while.. though at present a book of burial rites is more of a suggestion than an intention.. a good one though.
This was a very therapeutic post, I think!
very much so Bev darling.. c
My condolences to those who have lost loved ones.
I have had many deaths during my lifetime. I do not fear that different birth, for that is what it is. As we knew not what we were coming into at the moment of birth, we know not what we are going to at the moment of death. The transition is in its way the same in that we are not given to understand or know what we are going into. We shed the shell at death as we leave the womb at birth. I have sat with my family members as they approached their deaths, been aware of the change in the air as they left this world, slipping away from the body they no longer need and into the unknown. In the end, even with a room full of people, we die alone. The hardest part of having someone you love die is realizing that you can’t be physically with them anymore, at least for me.
Such truth. Scary. But true. Thank you.. c
You do realize you have another book (rough draft) here, I’m sure.
That said, my dad’s family has a tradition of cremation and scattering ashes at Mt. Rainier. My granddad is up there, and several aunts and a couple of uncles. My brother will be there (when my sister-in-law is ready to go there for it). It’s my wish to do the same. My folks didn’t go in for grave-visiting at all, and when they died (two weeks apart, when they were both ill) we had a memorial service a couple of months later on what would have been their 60th anniversary. Then the following summer we all gathered at the mountain.
The business of scattering ashes “to the wind” is a bit romantic, however, and most people don’t realize it. They don’t blow away, they are heavy. Plan accordingly.
I’m late in the day, literally, Sunday night Australia time to the post and comments. I’m sorry for those to whom your refer Celi for their losses and those mentioned in the comments. But this a worthwhile conversation. And if it’s being had here then I like to believe it’s being had elsewhere. Because no matter what the beliefs, traditions wishes are they need to be communicated to someone somehow before the time comes. It’s not for us, but for those we leave behind… for they are the ones who however long lived however lived are left with the honour as we leave our earthly bodies this time around.